Nantwich Fabric Sale quilt display

I took everything needed for displaying the quilts - except my camera. One of the quilters from Wrexham Quilting Circle, Jane, kindly took these for me (you can see one of Jane's quilts in "Compendium of Quilting Techniques" (UK edition)/"200 Quilting Tips Techniques and Trade Secrets (USA edition), in the section on English paper piecing).

As I took the Oriental Log Cabin Sampler quilt to Chester Ps & Qs last Wednesday, as a sample for the Log Cabin workshop I'm teaching there in March, it ended up in a different bag and I forgot to take it today as originally planned. However, I don't know where I could have displayed it anyway! Two metal quilt stands measuring 3 metres each had quilts on both sides and there were also smaller quilts on both sides of the two lighting stands.

I would like to add more quilting to several of these quilts, including "The Denman Kannon", "Kasuri Sampler" (side by side on the right in the first photo), "Butterfly Dance", "Kamon Sampler (left above), "Super Strips II" and "Takarazukushi" (second photo from top). Hmm, that's most of the quilts on display...! There's room for a bit more quilting in the border of "Fish and Chips" too. Perhaps those are projects for next winter.

My demo for today was a bit different, as I was making a hinagata kimono, a miniature kimono sewing sampler that shows all the steps for making a real hitoe (unlined) kimono but is only about 18ins long. I'm teaching this next Saturday at Serendipity quilt shop in Bovey Tracey, Devon and thought it would be nice to have an extra workshop sample. Plus I had a yard of a Kona Bay print that seemed just right for making hinagata. Although the background is black, I sewed this using cream thread, so the stitching can be seen.

Today seemed busier than previous years and I couldn't get away from my demo table very much. There was a little time for shopping in the afternoon, when I got several great Japanese style fabrics for backing some forthcoming quilt projects. I like to keep a good selection of backings in stock so to speak, so I can use a different one on each quilt, keeping it appropriate to the quilt theme and colours whenever possible, and enabling me to identify individual quilts from the back. So long as any joins aren't down or across the centre, where the quilt it likely to be folded, I don't worry about having a pieced back.

The best find of the day was a repro stripe print that is the best solution I've found for the Turkey Red utility quilt project. I had already found another possibility, but this one is even better. I'll post a photo once I've unpacked the car - it's raining right now and I don't want to get soaked!

I've been promised some more photos, so will post those when they arrive.